Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — By now, most Americans have heard about the famous Tim Tebow advertisement Focus on the Family will air during the Super Bowl. The ad reportedly features Tebow and his mother Pam and her story about how she decided against an abortion. But few people have hear Tebow’s father discuss the story of Tim’s birth.

As most people know, Pam Tebow got sick with dysentery while on a missions trip to the Philippines and her doctors suggested she consider an abortion because of the medication she was taking while pregnant with Tim.

She refused, gave birth, and son Tim led the Florida Gators to a national championship and won the Heisman Trophy.

During a time with slightly less national attention focus on his family, Bob Tebow talked with Sports Illustrated about his son’s famous birth story.

"Have you heard the story of Timmy’s birth?" he told the magazine.

"When I was out in the mountains in Mindanao, back in ’86, I was showing a film and preaching that night. I was weeping over the millions of babies being [aborted] in America, and I prayed, ‘God, if you give me a son, if you give me Timmy, I’ll raise him to be a preacher,’" he recalled.

Shortly afterwards, Bob and Pam gave birth to their son, their fifth child, after what turned out to be a difficult pregnancy.

"The placenta was never properly attached, and there was bleeding from the get-go," Bob told SI. "We thought we’d lost him several times."

He told the magazine the part of the story that many publications haven’t included in their coverage of the ad and the Tebow family — namely, that Pam contracted amebic dysentery early in the pregnancy and that put her in a temporary coma.

Then, after refusing the abortion, Pam gave birth to Tim on August 14, 1987 and named the baby Timothy Richard Tebow.

"All his life, from the moment he could understand, I told him, ‘You’re a miracle baby,’" Bob told Sports Illustrated in July 2009. "’God’s got a purpose for you, and at some point I think He’s going to call you to preach.’

He concluded: "I asked God for a preacher, and he gave me a quarterback."